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I was one of the people that was skeptical of Tomlin when he was first hired. He's not your typical Steelers head coach by the Cowher standards that everyone was used too for so long. He is more like a Chuck Noll though so in that respect I think it took a bit for people to buy into his coaching style because they just weren't used to it; especially the younger fans who weren't around for the Noll era.

He's adapted himself to the city nicely, he'll get his extension in the quiet manner in which the team usually does it.

Cowher only had the #1 defense in 2001 and 2004. His teams defense was ranked in the top 5 many times during his tenure, but only twice at #1 overall.

Remember too that Cowher had much less to work with with when he took over. The dynasty players of the 70's were all retired by then and the 80's was just a decade to forget with a rag tag group of players. There were only a handful of decent players in that era honestly.

Tomlin was the benefactor of Cowher's hard work in putting together a championship team; much like Barry Switzer was when he took over for Jimmy Johnson. Obviously Tomlin's ability to build his own team is far and above anything that Switzer could hope for but both guys benefited greatly from their predecessors work.

I'm not sure if it's accurate, but in fairness, much of that defense in terms of system, coaches and players were left over from Cowher. So you can't really attribute the entire success of the Defense to Tomlin.

Cowher only had the #1 defense in 2001 and 2004. His teams defense was ranked in the top 5 many times during his tenure, but only twice at #1 overall.

Remember too that Cowher had much less to work with with when he took over. The dynasty players of the 70's were all retired by then and the 80's was just a decade to forget with a rag tag group of players. There were only a handful of decent players in that era honestly.

Tomlin was the benefactor of Cowher's hard work in putting together a championship team; much like Barry Switzer was when he took over for Jimmy Johnson. Obviously Tomlin's ability to build his own team is far and above anything that Switzer could hope for but both guys benefited greatly from their predecessors work.

Actually Noll was building a decent team before he retired. He left Cowher on Defense with Rod Woodson, Greg Liyod, Carnell Lake, and a few other serviceable players. Offense he left him Neil O'donnell, Bary Foster, Eric Green , Dermontti Dawson and a pretty decent OL. I kinda felt bad for Noll suffering through the dark 80's years and then retire when he was finally building a good team. As for the 80's sure losing the 70's legend players was big but so was the awful drafts they had.